Comments (13)

CoRev

February 28, 2014 11:35 am

This is a test to see if the Global Warming/Climate Change debate is actually over. Have progressives/liberals stopped the debate because recognition of the data being against them is making debate too painful.

Let me explain my thoughts on what is happening to the science of climate.

Climate science is built upon a couple of pillars that have gotten very shaky.
Pillar 1) Increases in Global Surface Average Temperatures are unprecedented.
Pillar 2) Warming is bad for (there is a long list of what is effected here, but seldom shown is mankind), because mankind actually thrives during a warming climate.
Pillar 3) Warming is 100% due to the Green House Effect (GHE) which is based upon a dominance by the Green House Gas (GHG), CO2, and that warming is unprecedented (fill in the time frame here.).

Climate is made up of cycles, some of which are just being identified and studied, but clearly defined in the data. Glaciations might be called the long term cycle and the shortest term daily. In between we have seasons, years, solar and ocean cycles, and some of these are very ill defined even in today’s climate science

There is a very valid argument for using the advent of satellite data start date, because that is the start of the era where data from almost all of the planet using a single set of instruments became available. Prior data was from different methods, instruments and even different standards. Accordingly as we go backwards the quality of date deteriorates significantly.
Concentrating on this very short satellite data time frame gives a completely different look at the Global Surface Average Temperatures from Figure 1.http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/plot/rss/trend
Figure 2

From the actual “Long Term” Holocene wide look at the data can we see this bump at the end of the data? Nope! What is and has been happening is that the concentration on the very, very short term look has given us a false picture of that is happening in “long Term” Global Surface Average Temperatures.

Note the clear cyclical pattern evident in Figure 3. This is caused by ocean oscillations, the one most evident is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, an approximate sixty year cycle evenly divided into warm and cold periods. Also not the annual peaks and valleys. These are often correlated with another Pacific Ocean phenomenon, El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), annual events which are more prevalent in the warm PDO and offset by annual La Nina events more prevalent in cool PDO cycles. These are natural events and the planet was in warm ENSO period from ~1979 through ~2005.

The cyclical pattern clear in Figure 3 is slightly less obvious when all are shown, but it is there still, but is still in effect. We are currently entering the cool phase of the PDO, and also have the cool phase of the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation (AMO) with a diminishing solar output. The sum and synchronization of these natural climate forcings happen occasionally and are seldom good for the climate. Many climate scientists not wed to the Anthropogenic Green House, Anthropogenic Global Warming theory are predicting an extended multi-decadal period of cooling. Time will tell, but what is clear is that the current science as demonstrated in the climate models, which are diverging from observations, are wrong.

To be clear, except for the Figure 1, the trends are from anomaly data, the difference from a base period average, which is used to calculate changes and show trends of that change. Most base periods are 30 years, except for the RSS data set, which uses just 20 years. None of these data sets use the same anomaly period, but that doesn’t matter for showing trends. Even though the nominal data will be different in each data set, the trends will be nearly identical.

Below we see in Figure 4 how the two satellite data sets, University of Alabama Huntsville (UAF) and Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) and the combined land and sea data sets United States NASA GISSGisTemp and the United Kingdom HadCRU

EMichael

February 28, 2014 2:54 pm

The debate, at least for me, is over in terms of wasting time with a non scientist who has an endless stream of useless posts with inferior and dishonest information or real information which is expanded beyond its intended limitations.

CoRev

March 1, 2014 8:35 am

Thanks Bears for confirming what I was seeing at other sites. There are a few hangers-on that cannot accept the data, but they are usually characterized as zealots

This argument is over. The hiatus pretty much confirms what skeptics have said for years, nature is a much larger influence than estimated, and the models over estimate the anthropogenic influence.

Just another on the long list of progressive/liberal issues proven wrong or exaggerated.

Jack

March 2, 2014 2:27 pm

So I have two choices in regards to the so called argument/debate over “climate change.” On the one hand I can accept what Co Rev reproduces here, the many and several “scientific”(?) findings that he claims disprove the thesis that climate change is taking place or that human activity has anything to do with it. On the other hand I can accept the findings of two widely respected organizations that promote scientific research and the dissemination of such research findings, “An overview from the Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences”http://royalsociety.org/uploadedFiles/Royal_Society_Content/policy/projects/climate-evidence-causes/climate-change-evidence-causes.pdf

From the Conclusions of that Overview:
“This document explains that there are well-understood physical mechanisms by which changes in the amounts of greenhouse gases cause climate changes. It discusses the evidence that the concentrations of these gases in the atmosphere have increased and are still increasing rapidly, that climate change is occurring, and that most of the recent
change is almost certainly due to emissions of greenhouse gases caused by human activities. Further climate change is inevitable; if emissions of greenhouse gases continue unabated, future changes will substantially exceed those that have occurred so far. There remains a range of estimates of the magnitude and regional expression of future change,
but increases in the extremes of climate that can adversely affect natural ecosystems and human activities and infrastructure are expected.”

So who do we accept as the experts in regards to the issue of climate change? On the one hand we have CoRev, reactionary blogger. On the other hand we have a review of the literature published by the two most prestigious scientific communities in the world. I’ll ponder the choices.

Jack

March 2, 2014 2:29 pm

Oh, one other point, and here I agree with CoRev. The issue does seem to be settled, at least the science of the issue seems so. The emotional and political aspects of the issue apparently rage on in some minds.

CoRev

March 2, 2014 4:20 pm

Jack,its a strawman argument: Your main strawman argument is: “… that he claims disprove the thesis that climate change is taking place or that human activity has anything to do with it” Those are your words and argument not mine. You failed to even reference any of my points or my graphs FROM THE ACTUAL DATA

Climate is changing. Always has. The planet has warmed in the time frame of the measured temperature records. (See my figures 2-4) Neither of these points were mine.

Outside experts asked to comment on the report noted that it lacks new information, but neatly packages mainstream climate science for a general audience. “Ultimately, [it is] rather ho-hum, and pretty redundant to everything else that is out there,” Roger Pielke Jr., a climate policy analyst and professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, told NBC News in an email.”

JC concludes her review:
“However, the stated goal was to make clear what is well established, where consensus is growing, and where there is still uncertainty. In this, they failed . The ‘more certain the ever’ is belied by the IPCC AR5 itself, as summarized in my recent Senate testimony. And their strategy of making overconfident answers to nearly all of the questions, then discussing the ‘uncertainty issue’ in a superficial way at the end of the report is flat out misleading, and will reinforce the public distrust of ‘establishment’ assessments of climate science.

This report is an unfortunate step backwards relative to the IPCC AR5 itself, and the previous RS report Climate change: a summary of the science which I thought was pretty good.”

If anything the RS/NAS Report is an indication of the growing desperation to regain public opinion, but the scientists are their own worse enemy. Too many missed, exaggerated, and just plain wrong predictions, and they are obvious to the public.

Jack

March 2, 2014 6:51 pm

Hello again. You put a lot of stock in Dr. Curry’s writings. Here is all that I could find quickly, but it is a tantalizing beginning of a trail to less than valediction of her work.

I make reference to a detailed report from two highly acclaimed scientific “academies.” You reference a critique of that report by one person who makes owns a climate consulting business with major corporations as clients. That one person has herself been criticized for the same reasons that she criticizes the report I referenced. It sounds a lot like the Pot/Kettle Black phenomenon, but I don’t think the pot is tarnished in the way its counter part seems to be.

SourceWatch??? Curry runs a Weather Prediction service, and you use this pure propaganda site for research?

Care to discuss my points? Or are they too defined by the data?

Jack

March 2, 2014 10:14 pm

CoRev,

What EMichael said, “The debate, at least for me, is over in terms of wasting time with a non scientist who has an endless stream of useless posts with inferior and dishonest information or real information which is expanded beyond its intended limitations.” It’s well worth repeatinf in this context.

CoRev

March 3, 2014 7:23 am

Jack, EM, Bears OK! You confirmed my point.

No one was able to discuss the material/data I provided in the comment.I provided. By not following into the pool of emotionalism surrounding the religious fervor, and staying on topic no actual science in my comment was discussed.

The science has moved beyond the emotion of most liberal arguments and toward what the skeptics were predicting.

Jack

March 4, 2014 1:25 pm

Wrong again CoRev. You made a claim. I cited a substantive review of the literature sponsored by two highly regarded scientific academies. You there after cited a critique of that review from a single climate scientist who is paid to produce scientific articles about climate by corporate clients. That boils down to one voice against many, all with serious credentials in the field of climate science. And the one has financial ties to the business community that would like to cast doubt on climate science.

It seems to me that you refuse to accept that your claims, and the citations that you offer in support of the claims, are not generally accepted by the scientific community.

CoRev

March 4, 2014 6:03 pm

Jack, there was much meat in my original comment. It was an experiment if it would raise the level of commenting. It did not. It did not even receive any comments on its details nor data.

That was the result I expected. That was the result I received, and frankly I was disappointed. Even the “in-house” scientist could not address the science, but fell into the pit of emotionalism, ad homs and false far left claims.